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There is a seismic shift about to happen in your life that you are going to need a point of reference for. A breakthrough is coming that will break open things in your life, but it won't look like a breakthrough if you don't have a playbook showing you that what the devil meant for evil, God is using to shift you for good.
In the Message version of Mark 5:34, Jesus says to the woman: "Daughter, you took a risk of faith and now not only are you healed you're healed and whole." Your suffering is over. In 2025, live well and live blessed.
Proof is the undeniable evidence, confirmation, or demonstration that something is true, valid, or effective. In the context of faith, proof is not just what is seen but also what is revealed through action, transformation, and testimony.
Proof is the visible or tangible manifestation of an unseen reality. It is the evidence of faith in action, the confirmation of God's power at work, and the undeniable witness that something has changed, shifted, or been fulfilled.
The acronym PROOF breaks down into five core elements:
When I say you are about to be proof, I'm saying that in your particular circle, the very thing that is real but unseen—you are about to be the tangible evidence that what people thought could not happen, God is still happening.
You are about to walk into a season where you're going to be undeniable and unignorable. The favor on your life in 2025 is going to be so undeniable that even the folk who don't like you are going to have to say, "Yeah, but they doing it though. They doing it though."
You don't have to say congratulations to me in 2025. You can just look at me and say, "I see you. I see you." You ain't got to like me, you ain't got to hang with me, you ain't got to kick it with me. Just accept the fact that I am the proof that God is making ways out of nowhere.
Proof is what remains when doubt has no argument. It's not just words—it's the evidence that something real has happened.
The word undeniable means unable to be denied or disputed, obviously clear, totally blatantly true. It's so true that it would be crazy to deny it. Unignorable means something is impossible to ignore—too important or significant to be neglected. That's what you're about to be.
Doubt is an argument. When God presents you with a prophetic word that you're about to be blessed, doubt says, "I object." On what grounds? Patterns. They weren't blessed last year, weren't blessed the year before. But God says, "I object. I kept them through a whole pandemic. I got them a job when everybody else was being laid off."
When you walk in doubt, you're not doubting what will happen—you're doubting who can make it happen. You're not doubting the option; you're doubting The Giver.
When you pray and say, "God, heal my family," and your friends start telling you about all the generational curses in your family, what you're really saying is: "God, I don't think my family can be healed. I doubt you can do it." Proof is what remains when doubt has no argument.
The Theology of Divine Partnership is the opposite of the ideology that people are supposed to help you, that you can't make it alone, or that you need to be rescued. James 2:17 says: "Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."
Your breakthrough won't happen until you do something. This is not always absolute—this is why you need discernment to know what season you're in. There are certain seasons where Jesus went to people. There are certain seasons where people had to go to Jesus.
A woman who had been bent over dealing with a disease for 18 years—the scripture says He told them, "Bring her to me." He made that woman who struggled walking walk. But certain deliverances and certain breakthroughs in your life require your participation.
So many people are stuck because you are waiting for God to do everything. This wave of believers thinks all you have to do is holler in church and God will do it all. But the Theology of Divine Partnership rejects passive dependence.
Passive dependence is an entitled ideology that if you just wait on God, eventually He'll come through. But God won't take the cigarette out of your hand. God won't delete the number. God won't make your car not start so you can't go mess up.
If you want to be better, what are you going to do? Remember Lazarus—he was dead. Jesus shows up to the funeral and tells the people at the funeral to roll the stone away. They're going to participate. Then He tells Lazarus to come forth. If Lazarus were dead, why didn't Jesus go pick him up? Jesus says, "I'm not going to walk in a tomb that ain't for me. Why would I walk in something that you could hop out of?"
God will bring you out, but sometimes He doesn't bring you out by coming in to pull you out. He brings you out by calling you out and saying, "If you got the faith to walk out, come on out."
I'm not going to be the hold-up in 2025. I'm here for participatory deliverance.
You say, "Pastor Mike, I want to start a business," but you don't have the name yet? Go register the name online. It doesn't cost nothing. How is God going to send overflow to a business that ain't legal?
You say, "I don't know how I'm going to pay for school this year." That's cool—at least register. Go register for your class. God knows you got that balance. Go register. What's the worst that can happen? If you can't pay it, you weren't going to go in the first place anyway. But how about you say, "Hey God, you told me that sometimes I have to bust a move, so I went ahead and registered. If it's your will, I'm trusting you."
You say, "I'm tired of my apartment and my house." Well, find the agent. Start looking at places. "But Pastor Mike, that don't make no sense. I don't want to get my hopes up." That's exactly why you're stuck. That's why I'm in this series on proof—because I'm trying to show you that it may be somebody on your row, in your section, in the chat, or in the back who can tell you, "I didn't know how I was going to make it, but I'm in it now."
Is there anybody who's ever been sick and doctors threw their hands up but God healed your body? Will you please stand? Anybody ever been through a bad relationship and God mended your heart? Will you stand? Now bust a 360 and shout, "I'm proof! I'm proof! I'm proof!"
If you are evidence, you ought to jump up and shout, "God did it for me!" And if He did it for me, I know He can do it for you.
I didn't have no money when I signed a deal on this building. I had to walk in here like I knew something. "Yeah, we going to fix this. We got to change all these lights. We got to change that stage. We need new carpet." The carpet costs $65,000. The HVAC is going to be $200,000. You ever heard numbers that almost make you check your breathing?
But had I stayed in forestall waiting on God to drop a building in my lap, I never would have had it. The devil is trying to convince you that you are asking God for too much, when what's too much to them ain't too much to Him.
In this pregnant text in Mark, we find ourselves introduced to a woman with an issue of blood. Let's break down her situation:
Imagine bleeding all day every day. When you give blood at the hospital, they tell you don't drive. She's been living like that for 12 years.
She suffered for 12 long years—that's 4,236 days of constant chronic pain. But her suffering came on two levels. Not only was she in pain from her disease, but she also suffered greatly from the doctors.
When half of the pain in your life comes from the hands that were supposed to heal you, it creates a different kind of wound. When the reason you don't like church is because you trusted the church and it hurt you—when you left school because someone there wounded you—you're suffering on multiple levels.
Her disease was something the doctors had never seen before. So what they did was take her money and experiment on her, not knowing what they were doing. She was spent, broken, and deteriorating.
Pain can be a passport—not just a problem, but permission. What if your pain isn't just something wrong with you, but permission for you to enter into new places?
Here's the challenge: sometimes pain isn't a problem at all. It's a permission slip. Every mother bird, every eagle who makes a nest makes it soft enough for a baby eagle to enjoy, but they put thorns at the bottom of it. When that baby gets a certain weight, it pricks them. Why? Because "I love you, but I'm not going to let you be grown and sorry." If I don't hurt you, you won't move.
So sometimes your pain isn't a problem—sometimes your pain is permission.
Her pain positioned her for access. She heard about Jesus and came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. If she wasn't suffering, I'm not sure she would have gone to Jesus.
Sometimes God allows you to go through so you can come to Him. Some of you think you're catching hell when you're really not catching hell—God is allowing you to go through hell because He knows the only time you get on your face is when you're catching hell. God says, "The passport I will use to usher them back into my presence is pain, because don't nobody worship like somebody hurting."
When your bills are paid, you run the church casually. When your bank account is overflowing, you run the church casually. But when bills get behind and hell jumps off in your life, you run back into His presence. You forget the Blesser when you're enjoying the blessing.
The text opens in Mark 5:25: "A woman in the crowd." Why is it important that she was in a crowd? It's a reminder that you can be lost in a crowd. You can be in company with no companion.
Everybody in attendance isn't always in agreement. Not everyone in a room full of family and friends is actually in agreement with you. I don't know who came to church carrying something privately that they won't express. I don't know which young brother came in with his girl going through something he hasn't told anyone about.
That's why sometimes you have to walk side to side, show your face, let people know you see them. You can be lost in a crowd, and sometimes your presence means something.
When you go through, you come to your senses—and your senses equal repentance.
Remember the prodigal son? He didn't come to his senses when the maid made his bed, when the chef cooked a five-course meal, or when he was living in his daddy's palace behind a gate. He came to his senses when he hit rock bottom, eating pig slop out of a pig's pan.
The problem with the 21st-century church is that everybody wants to live and nobody wants to die. Everybody wants resurrection but nobody wants crucifixion. But some of the crucifixion in your life is because God is trying to resurrect something in your life.
What does it mean to come to your senses? It means going through:
Certain friendships have to fall apart because of how your loyalty is set up—you would have always taken it. God loved you enough and loved them enough to let you both hurt each other enough to separate so He could heal both of you.
When you come to your senses, you get this realization: God's way is better than our own. So the question is: What have you ignored, rejected, or run from that God is now making you recognize?
The second place you come to is the well—the fulfillment in Jesus.
Remember the Samaritan woman at the well? Most preachers make her seem wild or loose, but the Scripture doesn't say that. She had five husbands, which might mean that in that culture, when husbands died, she didn't have say over who she married next. It could have been the system, not her character.
Nevertheless, at that well she met Jesus. And when she comes to the well experience, she goes through:
Some of the emptiest nights of my life were the nights I wore the most accolades. I won artist of the year a second and third time—those were the most depressing nights of my life. I was staring at the phone waiting for it to ring, hoping my heroes would call, wanting affirmation from people I'd always looked up to. With 19 trophies, thousands of people in church, I was empty. Why? Because only Jesus satisfies.
You're going to deal with emptiness and disappointment. Here's the distinction: Disappointment is sadness caused by non-fulfillment of expectations. Being disheartened is a loss of determination and confidence—your spirit is broken. It's okay to be disappointed; never be disheartened.
So the question is: Are you drinking from wells that leave you empty? How many prophetic words do you need? How many messages from how many different people? If you go somewhere to eat, then somewhere else to eat, then somewhere else to eat—how long before you get sick? There's only one well that truly satisfies.
The third place you come to is the cross—a place of surrender and salvation. When you have a cross experience, you go through:
God won't move till you take your hand off the wheel. We are spiritual control freaks—we even want to control who blesses us. You'd be surprised how many people missed their breakthrough because they didn't receive the person God sent.
I had artists who got connected to a label. They were so proud of their song pitch to Spotify until I explained: "You're connected to a label now. Capital does that for us. You now have a whole sales team that will get on the phone, call Spotify, call Apple. You've been self-sufficient for so long you were moving quicker than your help."
The moment you get a problem, you try to fix it, make phone calls, see who has a hookup—not realizing none of those people can fix it. All you're doing is putting more people in your business who shouldn't be there. Then God has to fix the problem and the mess you made.
I'm being serious: take your hands off of it. In this season, I didn't expect 600 kids in children's church. I didn't know how to hire 25 police officers for traffic or set up sensory rooms or ensure wheelchair accessibility. I had to get to a point and say, "God, I don't know how to do this. I'm giving it to You." And you know what God did? He started bringing people I didn't even know into my life.
Sometimes God lets things get out of control because that's the only way you will lose control. When you put your pride down and say, "I'm sorry, I need help"—that's you coming to the cross. When you admit your mistakes and say, "I need to try to fix this and I'm sorry"—that's surrender.
Right now my son is in Houston at a 7-on-7 football tournament. He's 18 and with people I don't really know. I kept asking God, "God, God, God." And the Holy Spirit said, "Who has control—you or me?" I had to say, "God, I give You control. I trust You."
I am not being self-sufficient. I can't do all things on my own—I can do all things through Him. The greatest trick the devil played on God's people is letting you live long enough to think you're self-made. I'm not self-made; I'm God-made. He might have just used my hands, but if it had not been for the blood of Jesus, none of this would have happened.
The fourth place you come to is a place of full surrender—where we let God lead. That's the hardest part of all. I'm turning down opportunities in this season that would change my family forever. They're throwing money at me, but I have to ask, "Is this what God wants?"
I'm not rich, even though everybody thinks I am. I'm just blessed. I still make what I made 13 years ago—never got a raise. It was never about money; it was always about how I can continue to help people. God, if I take care of them, You'll take care of me.
When you come to the place of full surrender, that's where you let God lead. That's the hardest part of all. I'm turning down opportunities in this season of my life that would change my family forever. They're throwing money at me, but I have to ask, "Is this legal? Is this what God wants?"
Contrary to popular belief, I'm not rich. I know everyone thinks I am, but I'm just blessed. I still make what I made 13 years ago—never got a raise. It was never about money to me; it was always about how I can continue to help people. God, if I take care of them, You'll take care of me.
Now I'm getting offered money I ain't never seen in my life. But here's what I realize: my boys are 18, 17, and 16 years old. They can't afford for me not to be present. I can't have them in this stage of their life figuring things out because as much as they love their mama, the man in them is going to make them buck up a little bit.
I got to be in the house. They got to hear my footsteps. They got to hear my voice. I want them to see me standing at practice. And I want my church to know that I'm going to be there—not sitting at home wondering if I'll show up this week. Although I'm walking away from a lot, I'm comfortable because I feel in my soul God is leading me.
Here's what I need you to understand: He's leading me—this ain't pulling. That's pulling. That's why you keep wrecking so much in your life because you got people you're trying to drag into seasons God didn't call y'all to. God didn't call y'all to that; He called you to that.
Who told you your purpose was a group project? Who told you your assignment was a group project? Yes, you want to do it with them, but God didn't call you necessarily to do it with them. And whenever you become a slave to them, He disrupts them so it can just be you and Him.
God is not pulling you. God is saying, "Hey, I got an assignment for your life," and He's walking. This is leading. When the problem shows up, you don't hit the problem because I'm leading you. But the problem with many of you is that God is leading you, but you have to stop to make sure everyone else is okay.
I'm not going to stop dimming what God's doing in me because I got to make sure you can handle what God's doing in me. I got to go. They're tired of me. I got to go.
Some of y'all are one surrender away. One surrender away. When is the last time you said, "Listen, God, lead me. Lead me"? That might sound churchy, especially to my young people, but when is the last time you grabbed her hand and said, "Hold on real quick. God, lead us. Lead us. We don't know how to do this. We ain't seen no healthy marriages. We ain't seen no healthy relationships. So God, if you don't mind, can you just lead us?"
Here's the challenge I want to issue to you: What if God is asking you to lay down so that you can rise up in purpose?
I never forget—I was eight years old. My dad was a pastor at Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, and he got the job. We were staying in a little yellow house with rats and roaches. My dad was a police officer, and one night the rats had gotten into his water bed, and water started shooting up everywhere. You'd hear them at night just moving. It was one of the most terrifying things.
One night my dad couldn't take it anymore. Me and my brother were in the bunk bed just sleeping, and we just heard my daddy yell, "Get out of my house!" He got his gun and he's shooting. You could just see rats running through the hallway.
When you're in it, you don't realize you're struggling. Now I look back and I think I was poor, but I didn't even know I was poor back then. So my dad got called to be a pastor, and I never forget we went to the church to introduce ourselves. My dad went to a Bible bookstore and got himself a little robe, and then he had them make a plate for his desk. I don't know how I still remember this, but it said "MD McLure—Singer, Pastor" and underneath it said, "Follow me as I follow God."
I remember being a little kid just staring at it, not understanding what he was talking about. But now, realizing who God is, I understand: God, lead us.
To all my fellas and ladies who run your household—where it's just you and your children depending on you—listen to me real quickly: You cannot afford not to have God lead you. I can't do it. I need Him to lead me.
I'm raising teenage boys. That's difficult. I'm trying to let them be men without being overbearing, trying to let them grow and express themselves, but there are moments where I just want to grab them. But I don't want to kill the dog in them because they need that. And I'm also trying to nurture this, so I'm like, "God, lead me. Lead me."
When my oldest son comes in my room and sits in the chair, that means something to me now. Even though he's just sitting there, I don't know what he's sitting there for, but in my head, it's like he's comfortable. So God, I take that.
When Mike won't move without texting me—"Dad, fixing to leave school, headed to the bowling alley, love you buddy"—that matters. When Xander came to me and finally said, "Dad, I need to ask your question real quick," he was going through a situation trying to get his girl and didn't know what to say. I had to get his phone and start texting for him. He came running in that kitchen, "Dad, Dad, I don't know what to say!" I said, "Calm down, calm down. I'm not comfortable in this situation, but if you ever..."
And then he was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you said that to me!" I said, "I got you, boy. I got you." You know, your daddy had to shut up before I got in trouble or got put out. But I appreciate those moments because in a crisis, he's like, "Dad, help lead me."
What if I were sitting in the kitchen saying, "Man, we don't chase them. You can get another one just like you got?" That's passing on toxic traits. What I'm trying to show you is: I need God to lead me.
God will sometimes allow you to go through something so you can come to the upper room. I'm not talking about the one when Jesus appeared—I'm talking about in the Book of Acts on the day of Pentecost when they were all in one place in one accord and the Holy Spirit descended and they began to speak in other languages.
When God brings us to that moment, what we go through is weakness, doubt, and feeling unqualified. That's the upper room experience. When I experience weakness, doubt, and feeling unqualified, what do we come to? A place of the Holy Spirit's power, clarity, and boldness.
So here's the challenge: Have you been waiting on the power when God is waiting on you to just show up?
What if the thing that hurts you the most is actually leading you to your greatest breakthrough?
I think about the woman with the issue of blood. The Bible tells me about people in the New Testament who were saved, but I don't know if she was saved. What I do know is she had a problem that was too big for her, and she ran to Jesus. If she didn't have that problem, I'm not sure she would have ran to Jesus. So God is grateful—today I'm talking to people in this room, people in overflow, and people from around the world who got problems. But you didn't need a problem to come to Jesus.
Here's the big challenge: In all our ways, acknowledge God, and He will direct our path. As the pastor of this church, I'm guilty because I don't necessarily acknowledge God in all my ways. I come to Him a lot, but I'm not sure I come to Him about everything.
In this season of our lives, let us start practicing coming to you in all our ways, God. This may sound funny, but when I leave church today, I'm going to pray about what I'm going to eat. That may sound funny, but I don't know what business got food poisoning. I don't know what business got a robber going to walk into it.
In all our ways, we'll acknowledge God because I know He's going to direct our path.
There is a seismic shift about to happen in your life that you are going to need a point of reference for. A breakthrough is coming that will break open things in your life, but it won't look like a breakthrough if you don't have a playbook showing you that what the devil meant for evil, God is using to shift you for good.
In the Message version of Mark 5:34, Jesus says to the woman: "Daughter, you took a risk of faith and now not only are you healed you're healed and whole." Your suffering is over. In 2025, live well and live blessed.
Proof is the undeniable evidence, confirmation, or demonstration that something is true, valid, or effective. In the context of faith, proof is not just what is seen but also what is revealed through action, transformation, and testimony.
Proof is the visible or tangible manifestation of an unseen reality. It is the evidence of faith in action, the confirmation of God's power at work, and the undeniable witness that something has changed, shifted, or been fulfilled.
The acronym PROOF breaks down into five core elements:
When I say you are about to be proof, I'm saying that in your particular circle, the very thing that is real but unseen—you are about to be the tangible evidence that what people thought could not happen, God is still happening.
You are about to walk into a season where you're going to be undeniable and unignorable. The favor on your life in 2025 is going to be so undeniable that even the folk who don't like you are going to have to say, "Yeah, but they doing it though. They doing it though."
You don't have to say congratulations to me in 2025. You can just look at me and say, "I see you. I see you." You ain't got to like me, you ain't got to hang with me, you ain't got to kick it with me. Just accept the fact that I am the proof that God is making ways out of nowhere.
Proof is what remains when doubt has no argument. It's not just words—it's the evidence that something real has happened.
The word undeniable means unable to be denied or disputed, obviously clear, totally blatantly true. It's so true that it would be crazy to deny it. Unignorable means something is impossible to ignore—too important or significant to be neglected. That's what you're about to be.
Doubt is an argument. When God presents you with a prophetic word that you're about to be blessed, doubt says, "I object." On what grounds? Patterns. They weren't blessed last year, weren't blessed the year before. But God says, "I object. I kept them through a whole pandemic. I got them a job when everybody else was being laid off."
When you walk in doubt, you're not doubting what will happen—you're doubting who can make it happen. You're not doubting the option; you're doubting The Giver.
When you pray and say, "God, heal my family," and your friends start telling you about all the generational curses in your family, what you're really saying is: "God, I don't think my family can be healed. I doubt you can do it." Proof is what remains when doubt has no argument.
The Theology of Divine Partnership is the opposite of the ideology that people are supposed to help you, that you can't make it alone, or that you need to be rescued. James 2:17 says: "Faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."
Your breakthrough won't happen until you do something. This is not always absolute—this is why you need discernment to know what season you're in. There are certain seasons where Jesus went to people. There are certain seasons where people had to go to Jesus.
A woman who had been bent over dealing with a disease for 18 years—the scripture says He told them, "Bring her to me." He made that woman who struggled walking walk. But certain deliverances and certain breakthroughs in your life require your participation.
So many people are stuck because you are waiting for God to do everything. This wave of believers thinks all you have to do is holler in church and God will do it all. But the Theology of Divine Partnership rejects passive dependence.
Passive dependence is an entitled ideology that if you just wait on God, eventually He'll come through. But God won't take the cigarette out of your hand. God won't delete the number. God won't make your car not start so you can't go mess up.
If you want to be better, what are you going to do? Remember Lazarus—he was dead. Jesus shows up to the funeral and tells the people at the funeral to roll the stone away. They're going to participate. Then He tells Lazarus to come forth. If Lazarus were dead, why didn't Jesus go pick him up? Jesus says, "I'm not going to walk in a tomb that ain't for me. Why would I walk in something that you could hop out of?"
God will bring you out, but sometimes He doesn't bring you out by coming in to pull you out. He brings you out by calling you out and saying, "If you got the faith to walk out, come on out."
I'm not going to be the hold-up in 2025. I'm here for participatory deliverance.
You say, "Pastor Mike, I want to start a business," but you don't have the name yet? Go register the name online. It doesn't cost nothing. How is God going to send overflow to a business that ain't legal?
You say, "I don't know how I'm going to pay for school this year." That's cool—at least register. Go register for your class. God knows you got that balance. Go register. What's the worst that can happen? If you can't pay it, you weren't going to go in the first place anyway. But how about you say, "Hey God, you told me that sometimes I have to bust a move, so I went ahead and registered. If it's your will, I'm trusting you."
You say, "I'm tired of my apartment and my house." Well, find the agent. Start looking at places. "But Pastor Mike, that don't make no sense. I don't want to get my hopes up." That's exactly why you're stuck. That's why I'm in this series on proof—because I'm trying to show you that it may be somebody on your row, in your section, in the chat, or in the back who can tell you, "I didn't know how I was going to make it, but I'm in it now."
Is there anybody who's ever been sick and doctors threw their hands up but God healed your body? Will you please stand? Anybody ever been through a bad relationship and God mended your heart? Will you stand? Now bust a 360 and shout, "I'm proof! I'm proof! I'm proof!"
If you are evidence, you ought to jump up and shout, "God did it for me!" And if He did it for me, I know He can do it for you.
I didn't have no money when I signed a deal on this building. I had to walk in here like I knew something. "Yeah, we going to fix this. We got to change all these lights. We got to change that stage. We need new carpet." The carpet costs $65,000. The HVAC is going to be $200,000. You ever heard numbers that almost make you check your breathing?
But had I stayed in forestall waiting on God to drop a building in my lap, I never would have had it. The devil is trying to convince you that you are asking God for too much, when what's too much to them ain't too much to Him.
In this pregnant text in Mark, we find ourselves introduced to a woman with an issue of blood. Let's break down her situation:
Imagine bleeding all day every day. When you give blood at the hospital, they tell you don't drive. She's been living like that for 12 years.
She suffered for 12 long years—that's 4,236 days of constant chronic pain. But her suffering came on two levels. Not only was she in pain from her disease, but she also suffered greatly from the doctors.
When half of the pain in your life comes from the hands that were supposed to heal you, it creates a different kind of wound. When the reason you don't like church is because you trusted the church and it hurt you—when you left school because someone there wounded you—you're suffering on multiple levels.
Her disease was something the doctors had never seen before. So what they did was take her money and experiment on her, not knowing what they were doing. She was spent, broken, and deteriorating.
Pain can be a passport—not just a problem, but permission. What if your pain isn't just something wrong with you, but permission for you to enter into new places?
Here's the challenge: sometimes pain isn't a problem at all. It's a permission slip. Every mother bird, every eagle who makes a nest makes it soft enough for a baby eagle to enjoy, but they put thorns at the bottom of it. When that baby gets a certain weight, it pricks them. Why? Because "I love you, but I'm not going to let you be grown and sorry." If I don't hurt you, you won't move.
So sometimes your pain isn't a problem—sometimes your pain is permission.
Her pain positioned her for access. She heard about Jesus and came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. If she wasn't suffering, I'm not sure she would have gone to Jesus.
Sometimes God allows you to go through so you can come to Him. Some of you think you're catching hell when you're really not catching hell—God is allowing you to go through hell because He knows the only time you get on your face is when you're catching hell. God says, "The passport I will use to usher them back into my presence is pain, because don't nobody worship like somebody hurting."
When your bills are paid, you run the church casually. When your bank account is overflowing, you run the church casually. But when bills get behind and hell jumps off in your life, you run back into His presence. You forget the Blesser when you're enjoying the blessing.
The text opens in Mark 5:25: "A woman in the crowd." Why is it important that she was in a crowd? It's a reminder that you can be lost in a crowd. You can be in company with no companion.
Everybody in attendance isn't always in agreement. Not everyone in a room full of family and friends is actually in agreement with you. I don't know who came to church carrying something privately that they won't express. I don't know which young brother came in with his girl going through something he hasn't told anyone about.
That's why sometimes you have to walk side to side, show your face, let people know you see them. You can be lost in a crowd, and sometimes your presence means something.
When you go through, you come to your senses—and your senses equal repentance.
Remember the prodigal son? He didn't come to his senses when the maid made his bed, when the chef cooked a five-course meal, or when he was living in his daddy's palace behind a gate. He came to his senses when he hit rock bottom, eating pig slop out of a pig's pan.
The problem with the 21st-century church is that everybody wants to live and nobody wants to die. Everybody wants resurrection but nobody wants crucifixion. But some of the crucifixion in your life is because God is trying to resurrect something in your life.
What does it mean to come to your senses? It means going through:
Certain friendships have to fall apart because of how your loyalty is set up—you would have always taken it. God loved you enough and loved them enough to let you both hurt each other enough to separate so He could heal both of you.
When you come to your senses, you get this realization: God's way is better than our own. So the question is: What have you ignored, rejected, or run from that God is now making you recognize?
The second place you come to is the well—the fulfillment in Jesus.
Remember the Samaritan woman at the well? Most preachers make her seem wild or loose, but the Scripture doesn't say that. She had five husbands, which might mean that in that culture, when husbands died, she didn't have say over who she married next. It could have been the system, not her character.
Nevertheless, at that well she met Jesus. And when she comes to the well experience, she goes through:
Some of the emptiest nights of my life were the nights I wore the most accolades. I won artist of the year a second and third time—those were the most depressing nights of my life. I was staring at the phone waiting for it to ring, hoping my heroes would call, wanting affirmation from people I'd always looked up to. With 19 trophies, thousands of people in church, I was empty. Why? Because only Jesus satisfies.
You're going to deal with emptiness and disappointment. Here's the distinction: Disappointment is sadness caused by non-fulfillment of expectations. Being disheartened is a loss of determination and confidence—your spirit is broken. It's okay to be disappointed; never be disheartened.
So the question is: Are you drinking from wells that leave you empty? How many prophetic words do you need? How many messages from how many different people? If you go somewhere to eat, then somewhere else to eat, then somewhere else to eat—how long before you get sick? There's only one well that truly satisfies.
The third place you come to is the cross—a place of surrender and salvation. When you have a cross experience, you go through:
God won't move till you take your hand off the wheel. We are spiritual control freaks—we even want to control who blesses us. You'd be surprised how many people missed their breakthrough because they didn't receive the person God sent.
I had artists who got connected to a label. They were so proud of their song pitch to Spotify until I explained: "You're connected to a label now. Capital does that for us. You now have a whole sales team that will get on the phone, call Spotify, call Apple. You've been self-sufficient for so long you were moving quicker than your help."
The moment you get a problem, you try to fix it, make phone calls, see who has a hookup—not realizing none of those people can fix it. All you're doing is putting more people in your business who shouldn't be there. Then God has to fix the problem and the mess you made.
I'm being serious: take your hands off of it. In this season, I didn't expect 600 kids in children's church. I didn't know how to hire 25 police officers for traffic or set up sensory rooms or ensure wheelchair accessibility. I had to get to a point and say, "God, I don't know how to do this. I'm giving it to You." And you know what God did? He started bringing people I didn't even know into my life.
Sometimes God lets things get out of control because that's the only way you will lose control. When you put your pride down and say, "I'm sorry, I need help"—that's you coming to the cross. When you admit your mistakes and say, "I need to try to fix this and I'm sorry"—that's surrender.
Right now my son is in Houston at a 7-on-7 football tournament. He's 18 and with people I don't really know. I kept asking God, "God, God, God." And the Holy Spirit said, "Who has control—you or me?" I had to say, "God, I give You control. I trust You."
I am not being self-sufficient. I can't do all things on my own—I can do all things through Him. The greatest trick the devil played on God's people is letting you live long enough to think you're self-made. I'm not self-made; I'm God-made. He might have just used my hands, but if it had not been for the blood of Jesus, none of this would have happened.
The fourth place you come to is a place of full surrender—where we let God lead. That's the hardest part of all. I'm turning down opportunities in this season that would change my family forever. They're throwing money at me, but I have to ask, "Is this what God wants?"
I'm not rich, even though everybody thinks I am. I'm just blessed. I still make what I made 13 years ago—never got a raise. It was never about money; it was always about how I can continue to help people. God, if I take care of them, You'll take care of me.
When you come to the place of full surrender, that's where you let God lead. That's the hardest part of all. I'm turning down opportunities in this season of my life that would change my family forever. They're throwing money at me, but I have to ask, "Is this legal? Is this what God wants?"
Contrary to popular belief, I'm not rich. I know everyone thinks I am, but I'm just blessed. I still make what I made 13 years ago—never got a raise. It was never about money to me; it was always about how I can continue to help people. God, if I take care of them, You'll take care of me.
Now I'm getting offered money I ain't never seen in my life. But here's what I realize: my boys are 18, 17, and 16 years old. They can't afford for me not to be present. I can't have them in this stage of their life figuring things out because as much as they love their mama, the man in them is going to make them buck up a little bit.
I got to be in the house. They got to hear my footsteps. They got to hear my voice. I want them to see me standing at practice. And I want my church to know that I'm going to be there—not sitting at home wondering if I'll show up this week. Although I'm walking away from a lot, I'm comfortable because I feel in my soul God is leading me.
Here's what I need you to understand: He's leading me—this ain't pulling. That's pulling. That's why you keep wrecking so much in your life because you got people you're trying to drag into seasons God didn't call y'all to. God didn't call y'all to that; He called you to that.
Who told you your purpose was a group project? Who told you your assignment was a group project? Yes, you want to do it with them, but God didn't call you necessarily to do it with them. And whenever you become a slave to them, He disrupts them so it can just be you and Him.
God is not pulling you. God is saying, "Hey, I got an assignment for your life," and He's walking. This is leading. When the problem shows up, you don't hit the problem because I'm leading you. But the problem with many of you is that God is leading you, but you have to stop to make sure everyone else is okay.
I'm not going to stop dimming what God's doing in me because I got to make sure you can handle what God's doing in me. I got to go. They're tired of me. I got to go.
Some of y'all are one surrender away. One surrender away. When is the last time you said, "Listen, God, lead me. Lead me"? That might sound churchy, especially to my young people, but when is the last time you grabbed her hand and said, "Hold on real quick. God, lead us. Lead us. We don't know how to do this. We ain't seen no healthy marriages. We ain't seen no healthy relationships. So God, if you don't mind, can you just lead us?"
Here's the challenge I want to issue to you: What if God is asking you to lay down so that you can rise up in purpose?
I never forget—I was eight years old. My dad was a pastor at Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, and he got the job. We were staying in a little yellow house with rats and roaches. My dad was a police officer, and one night the rats had gotten into his water bed, and water started shooting up everywhere. You'd hear them at night just moving. It was one of the most terrifying things.
One night my dad couldn't take it anymore. Me and my brother were in the bunk bed just sleeping, and we just heard my daddy yell, "Get out of my house!" He got his gun and he's shooting. You could just see rats running through the hallway.
When you're in it, you don't realize you're struggling. Now I look back and I think I was poor, but I didn't even know I was poor back then. So my dad got called to be a pastor, and I never forget we went to the church to introduce ourselves. My dad went to a Bible bookstore and got himself a little robe, and then he had them make a plate for his desk. I don't know how I still remember this, but it said "MD McLure—Singer, Pastor" and underneath it said, "Follow me as I follow God."
I remember being a little kid just staring at it, not understanding what he was talking about. But now, realizing who God is, I understand: God, lead us.
To all my fellas and ladies who run your household—where it's just you and your children depending on you—listen to me real quickly: You cannot afford not to have God lead you. I can't do it. I need Him to lead me.
I'm raising teenage boys. That's difficult. I'm trying to let them be men without being overbearing, trying to let them grow and express themselves, but there are moments where I just want to grab them. But I don't want to kill the dog in them because they need that. And I'm also trying to nurture this, so I'm like, "God, lead me. Lead me."
When my oldest son comes in my room and sits in the chair, that means something to me now. Even though he's just sitting there, I don't know what he's sitting there for, but in my head, it's like he's comfortable. So God, I take that.
When Mike won't move without texting me—"Dad, fixing to leave school, headed to the bowling alley, love you buddy"—that matters. When Xander came to me and finally said, "Dad, I need to ask your question real quick," he was going through a situation trying to get his girl and didn't know what to say. I had to get his phone and start texting for him. He came running in that kitchen, "Dad, Dad, I don't know what to say!" I said, "Calm down, calm down. I'm not comfortable in this situation, but if you ever..."
And then he was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe you said that to me!" I said, "I got you, boy. I got you." You know, your daddy had to shut up before I got in trouble or got put out. But I appreciate those moments because in a crisis, he's like, "Dad, help lead me."
What if I were sitting in the kitchen saying, "Man, we don't chase them. You can get another one just like you got?" That's passing on toxic traits. What I'm trying to show you is: I need God to lead me.
God will sometimes allow you to go through something so you can come to the upper room. I'm not talking about the one when Jesus appeared—I'm talking about in the Book of Acts on the day of Pentecost when they were all in one place in one accord and the Holy Spirit descended and they began to speak in other languages.
When God brings us to that moment, what we go through is weakness, doubt, and feeling unqualified. That's the upper room experience. When I experience weakness, doubt, and feeling unqualified, what do we come to? A place of the Holy Spirit's power, clarity, and boldness.
So here's the challenge: Have you been waiting on the power when God is waiting on you to just show up?
What if the thing that hurts you the most is actually leading you to your greatest breakthrough?
I think about the woman with the issue of blood. The Bible tells me about people in the New Testament who were saved, but I don't know if she was saved. What I do know is she had a problem that was too big for her, and she ran to Jesus. If she didn't have that problem, I'm not sure she would have ran to Jesus. So God is grateful—today I'm talking to people in this room, people in overflow, and people from around the world who got problems. But you didn't need a problem to come to Jesus.
Here's the big challenge: In all our ways, acknowledge God, and He will direct our path. As the pastor of this church, I'm guilty because I don't necessarily acknowledge God in all my ways. I come to Him a lot, but I'm not sure I come to Him about everything.
In this season of our lives, let us start practicing coming to you in all our ways, God. This may sound funny, but when I leave church today, I'm going to pray about what I'm going to eat. That may sound funny, but I don't know what business got food poisoning. I don't know what business got a robber going to walk into it.
In all our ways, we'll acknowledge God because I know He's going to direct our path.
